5th August 2015. We’re in Iwate, Japan. No big drama today, my back feels much better and I have returned to work after an unfortunate two day absence. It no longer hurts to breathe, which is a tremendous relief. Sneezing however, is right out. BLOCK A:Katsuyori Shibata 8Tetsuya Naito 6Bad Luck Fale 6AJ Styles 6Hiroshi Tanahashi 6Kota Ibushi 6Togi Makabe 6Hiroyoshi Tenzan 2Toru Yano 2Doc Gallows 2BLOCK B: Tomohiro Ishii 8Kazuchika Okada 8Karl Anderson 6Hirooki Goto 6Shinsuke Nakamura 6Michael Elgin 6Yujiro Takahashi 4Satoshi Kojima 4Yuji Nagata 2Tomoaki Honma 0Today’s show is a trim 3.03, which is about 20 minutes shorter than almost every other show on the tour. This could bode quite badly. This is also one of the last hard-cam shows on the tour, which makes the intro video look rubbish because it’s literally shot off the big screen from the hard-cam. Some of the usually excellent NJPW production has been, shall we say, ‘lacking’ during the G1. I honestly can’t remember ever watching an entire stretch of G1 shows (2010 maybe?) so I can’t remember if this has been the case beforehand. Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Yohei Komatsu vs. Hirooki Goto, Michael Elgin & Mascara DoradaThis was originally an eight-man tag but Tiger Mask IV is still out with a neck injury, allegedly sustained during an AJ Styles piledriver, so it’s down to a six-man tag. David Finlay also misses out. Friday’s action pits Elgin against Nagata and Goto against Kojima so both matches are being hyped in this opening contest. Nagata vs. Elgin could be good but Yuji’s commitment to selling his rib injury, something I totally understand after the week I’ve had, could derail the action somewhat. Elgin targets the ribs during this match, looking to soften up Blue Justice. The crowds are definitely warming to Elgin and his powerhouse spots. The stalling suplex where the opponents kick him but can’t stop it is getting a lot of love. Goto and Kojima shows a lot of promise with both guys looking to make their mark on their opponent for Day Twelve. To round things out Dorada brings his aerial skill against Komatsu’s love of cheeky pin combinations. Part of the joy of this year’s G1 has been the set up of the tag matches, allowing bursts of excitement to build up future matches instead of endless Bullet Club tags that nobody cares about. It’s made this year’s cards easier to swallow as a whole. This was perfectly good wrestling all round. Final Rating: **1/2Bullet Club (Karl Anderson & Cody Hall) vs. Tomoaki Honma & Jay WhiteNo prizes for guessing who Karl Anderson is wrestling on Day Twelve. If the line-up here didn’t clue you in, it’s Tomoaki Honma. Cody is on his A-Game, ducking during the Machine Gun’s invisible machine gun entrance. Attaboy. Know your gimmicks! The match contains way too much heat, with Bullet Club isolating Jay for a big chunk of the contest. The interaction between Anderson and Honma is enough to sell me on the match they’ll be having on Day Twelve. They have some tidy enough counters lined up. Honma brings his first Super Kokeshi in the undercard tags during this one. Naturally it misses. When Jay gets on offence his work with Anderson is really good too. He’s showing tremendous potential during this G1 tournament. They even run a false finishes sequence where Jay looks like he might beat Karl. That would be something! Of course it doesn’t happen and Anderson floors the rookie with the Gun Stun. This one took a while to get going but finished strong. I totally buy into Jay White as being a genuine threat to heavyweights. He’s one to watch.Final Rating: **1/4KOKESHI COUNT – 1 missed. 2 hit. SUPER KOKESHI – 1 missed. Bullet Club (Yujiro Takahashi & Tama Tonga) vs. CHAOS (Shinsuke Nakamura & Tomohiro Ishii)Nakamura has Yujiro on Day Twelve. Ishii is wrestling CHAOS running buddy Okada so that requires no hype. No Mao, or girl of any kind of Yujiro. Disappointing. Tama has been developing his character of late, giving it little creepy ticks. The way he gestures toward the ropes during this match is akin to cartoon super villainy. It’s not unlike Shinsuke Nakamura, oddly enough. Nakamura’s sequences with Takahashi are not particularly good, barely salvaged by Shinsuke’s personality. Yujiro opts to work the arm, which is sensible but means a match of Takahashi controlling the pace. He doesn’t seem to have any idea what he’s doing out there. Skip ahead to Ishii’s hot tag and he just pounds the shit out of everyone and saves the day. Then Bullet Club work heat on Ishii too. Come on, guys, it’s only a three hour show. The CHAOS chaps team up to finish Tama off. This whole thing felt way too long (12 minutes) for an extended squash, which was basically all it was. The heat segments felt really forced. My least favourite Ishii match of the entire tour. No surprise it also featured Yujiro.Final Rating: *1/2KUSHIDA, Ryusuke Taguchi & Captain New Japan vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Gedo & YOSHI-HASHI)This is an interesting concept as Okada is the only G1 guy in there (as he’s wrestling stable-mate Ishii on Friday). The next biggest heavy hitter is YOSHI-HASHI, a perennial loser who’s had a phenomenal record during G1, winning almost every time out. Of the other side only Captain New Japan is classified as a heavyweight and he jobs to literally everybody so this is all about whether KUSHIDA can take out any of the guys on the other team. I still persist KUSHIDA should have gotten a G1 berth as a reward for winning the Super Juniors. I really want to see Okada vs. KUSHIDA so of all the undercard tags this one stands out as the ‘must see’. They don’t even showcase the match I want as Okada starts out doing super stuff with CNJ (yes, really) and the match goes from there to YOSHI-HASHI desperately trying to avoid Taguchi’s ass. KUSHIDA is the one who steals the show, gleefully flying around at 100mph, regardless of how slow it makes everyone else look, including the IWGP champion. Not that he ever spends any quality time in there with the champ, instead tagging out to Captain New Japan as they’re about to face off and even more irritating is that Taguchi gets the lion’s share of abuse on the champ. Okada finishes CNJ off with the Rainmaker. Okada and KUSHIDA’s shared ring time was one back elbow off the junior and roughly ten seconds elapsed. Boo!Final Rating: **1/2 G1 Climax Block ABad Luck Fale vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan Pre-Match Pick: Fale. I don’t particularly appreciate the way he’s been stinking up this tournament, despite his dapper hat, but New Japan seem to rate him as a big heavyweight spoiler machine. He can’t interfere with the latter group stages without beating no hopers like Tenzan. No offence to the former three-time winner but that was a long time ago and Tenzan is looking tired. The match could politely be described as ‘methodical’. It’s a plodding affair. Neither guy capable of forcing the pace nor bringing additional impact. So the fans get to “SSSSSHHHH” along with Tenzan’s Mongolian Chops and that’s about all we get. Bullet Club continue their routine of ruining matches, not that there’s much to ruin, and Tama Tonga gets involved. They run the Anaconda Vice for a bit until Fale powers out, takes an eternity climbing the buckles, and finishes with the High Fale Flow. Please tell me he’s not doing that as his regular finish? Presumably it’s just to piss Tanahashi off, which means they’re probably feuding to kill time until Wrestle Kingdom. Damn you, Gedo. Stop booking Fale into these big singles feuds! Final Rating: *Picks: 36/51G1 Climax Block AToru Yano vs. Katsuyori ShibataPre-Match Pick: Shibata. Although a fluke Yano win would not be a shock. Yano’s natural instinct is to troll Shibata into getting angry and making mistakes but Shibata’s baseline is angry ass-kicker. His MMA background gives him the kind of control that’s beyond most Yano opponents (even Suzuki, with his MMA background, constantly lost his rag). This gives Shibata an upper hand and Yano finds himself reaching into the bag of tricks almost immediately. Shibata won’t play the game and elbows Yano in the face during his clean BREEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAKK spot. Psychology doesn’t work on Shibata, he’s the fucking Terminator. Yano finds himself constantly in trouble but catches Shibata with a fluke pin as Shibata catches him in an armbar. Holy shit, the ultimate troll out-does himself. This is what Yano does to badasses though, I should have seen it coming. Match was fun while it lasted and the finish popped the crowd hard. One of the tournaments biggest upsets, although one you could perhaps see coming given Yano’s habit of fluke pinning big stars. This was barely four minutes long. A virtual night off for Katsuyori. Final Rating: **1/4 Picks: 36/52G1 Climax Block ADoc Gallows vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi Pre-Match Pick: Tanahashi. Although I did say on the Twitter that I would be quite pleased with a Gallows victory. Picking Tana is playing the percentages. It’s at times like these that Tanahashi wears his influences on his sleeve. This comes across as pure Shawn Michaels, with just a touch of puroresu bravado attached. Doc is a much more creative opponent than many of the lugs that HBK dragged to ***+ matches but Tanahashi’s days of taking that sheer number of bumps to get a match over are behind him (well, certainly matches of this importance, maybe the G1 Final or Wrestle Kingdom would be a different story). The chemistry isn’t there either, as evidenced when Doc mounts the buckles and Tana half-heartedly rolls out of the way. Another embarrassing spot seeing Doc looking over his shoulder to check Tana is about to jump him. They fuck up the spot where Tana jumps into a chokeslam too. If there was any doubt beforehand that seals the deal; this match is fucking terrible. Doc’s Mr Magoo peering toward Tanahashi as he approaches to hit the Slingblade is another goof that’s simply not good enough for G1. Perhaps the confidence was gone by that point, after the previous mistakes, and they wanted to make good and sure they didn’t botch another spot. Tana kicks out of a few spots, none of which Doc has ever used as a finish, as the crowd collectively have kittens and then wins with a roll up. This was dreadful. Final Rating: *1/4 Picks: 27/53G1 Climax Block AAJ Styles vs. Togi Makabe Pre-Match Pick: AJ. The Phenomenal One has had a patchy tournament, in terms of success, and Togi has been pretty awful in most of his matches. AJ likes to drag great matches out of guys like Makabe. For that alone he deserves the win. Togi tries to bludgeon his way past AJ, which rather explains his position on the card in relation to Styles. AJ finds counters for everything to work around Togi’s barbarism. The story of AJ Styles in New Japan is that he reached that top tier because he was too talented to get drawn into slugfests, and that’s Togi’s A-Game. AJ’s only clinical defeats have been when he’s met someone equally talented at the very top end of the roster. They don’t click all that well and this is evident when the quebrada inverted DDT is some way off connecting as it should. Other spots are perfectly executed but there are enough that don’t work to see they’re not quite on the same page. They get me invested with some clever near misses but they stumble over the finishing line as AJ takes it with the Styles Clash. Certainly a better match than the majority of the card but not a match we’ll be talking about at the end of the G1 when we discuss the top matches.Final Rating: ***1/4Picks: 28/54Tangent: I mentioned AJ turning himself a bit face by saluting the fans who offer up the Too Sweet gesture but the fans have gotten wise to it and they’re all throwing up the Wolfpack salute now, hopeful of interaction with AJ Styles. He only ever dishes out a couple but it’s more than most of the babyfaces in this promotion have done all year. G1 Climax Block AKota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito Pre-Match Pick: Ibushi. Could go either way so I’ve opted for the guy I want to win, rather than the one who will. Naito is clearly up for this one, despite the fixed camera, as he arrives dressed like Skeletor. That means a ridiculous delay for him getting undressed. Perhaps they should bring him out prior to the match before his, so he can get that fucking suit off in time for his bout. Tangent: It’s during this contest, with Naito doing an assortment of cheating, that I realise the sense of burn-out and how it’s almost inevitable when you watch this much wrestling from the same promotion in quick succession. This show has not helped matters. I’m sure all would be fine with a good card but this one just isn’t delivering. When Ibushi gets a chance to entertain, the match is at its best. An example is Naito going to dropkick Ibushi’s knees only for Kota to jump over it and hit the double stomp. Kota’s flash, mixed with Naito’s big bumps make the match a wonderful experience…when Ibushi is in charge. But that’s not often enough to make it a classic. Kota’s flying alone makes this match worth seeing though. It’s so crisp and perfect. Naito has moments where he’s interested in having that match too but far too often he falls into the pitfalls of heeldom. They attempt a few things that are just insane. The reverse rana off the top from Naito looks like it went horribly wrong, with Naito coming off at the wrong angle and Ibushi trying to salvage the spot before thinking ‘fuck it’ and flying off the top rope backwards. He is a ballsy motherfucker. They have some cunning near falls lined up, that totally rope the entire crowd in, even me with my burn-out, proving that good wrestling overcomes all. Naito even kicks out of the sit-out version of the Last Ride that Kota uses as a finisher in DDT. Even Red Shoes starts to get animated by leaping up the buckles to avoid a near finish. Naito clocks Ibushi with Destino for the win and this was, by some distance the best match on the show. Final Rating: ****1/4Picks: 28/55Let’s check out the Block before we head out. BLOCK AKatsuyori Shibata 8Tetsuya Naito 8Bad Luck Fale 8AJ Styles 8Hiroshi Tanahashi 8Kota Ibushi 6Togi Makabe 6Toru Yano 4Hiroyoshi Tenzan 2Doc Gallows 2Shibata’s place atop Block A didn’t last long and he’s absorbed back into the pack with four of his chasers all winning. The loss for Ibushi leaves him trailing the five big hitters by a win, although he’s got mostly scrubs left. With all the top guys still in play it’s anybodies group although Tetsuya Naito’s performances have positioned him a lot stronger now than at the start of the tournament. This is not something I was counting on.Summary: A pretty awful show until the main event rolled round. Kota Ibushi has been the shining star of this tour and continues to out-perform just about everyone. Naito’s character work is solid and they deserved to main event a show that featured all of NJPW’s other top wrestlers. Is it time for a changing of the guard in New Japan? If so, can Shibata get in on it? The basic rule of thumb is that if you’re going to put on a lacklustre show then at least finish strong and they did that. The last match (and to a lesser extent AJ vs. Togi) saved the show from being an actual, honest to God, *BAD G1 SHOW*, which is just unheard of in this day and age. Still the worst show of the tour but featuring one of the best matches. Verdict: 59